


Like Stars, But Less

by theyshotmyclown



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 04:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3105827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyshotmyclown/pseuds/theyshotmyclown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's tried so hard to become someone gentle. </p><p>Kieren-centric angst, I'm sorry for nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Stars, But Less

**Author's Note:**

> title stolen from a poem by coleridges on tumblr, it's very pretty and I highly recommend going to read the full thing.

Kieren is thirteen when he realises he's not quite right. Something is off kilter in his head, and he can't put his finger on it. It's like there's a radio station playing nothing but white noise in his brain all the time, and though it might change frequency sometimes it's never anything but static.

And for a while, that's not too bad. He can carry on as normal. The static is always there, varying in volume, but he can live with it.

He tries to explain this to Jem, but she's only little and though she tries to understand it's clear in the way she pats his arm and furrows her brow that she doesn't really grasp it. His mum tells him to get outside more, see more friends, maybe start a journal, but backs away from any conversation skirting near the words _mentally ill_ out of the wrongly placed fear of having failed, and Kieren starts to do the same. He throws himself into his art and ignores the feeling of heaviness settling into his chest.

* * *

 

Of course, things get worse when he realises he's in love with Rick Macy – how could they not? Rick isn't his only friend but he's the best one, the closest one, and Kieren knows that if he were to imply he felt anything more than that, Rick would turn tail. The heaviness weighs him down that year, but Kieren locks it away and tries to comfort himself with every brush stroke filling in the contours of Rick's jawline.

And then, on a summer night in the park after a few beers when they're only just pushing seventeen, Rick tugs him in by his sleeve and kisses him; it's sloppy and drunk and it sets his skin on fire.

Rick apologises, of course. Says he doesn't know what he was thinking, he must have been drunker than he thought, he hopes Kieren won't feel weird seeing him now. Kieren smiles and says he won't, but it happens again and neither of them do anything to stop it.

It goes unspoken, exchanged in careful looks and drunken kisses in the woods. Rick holds his hand tightly but always out of sight, always when they're alone. Kieren tries not to blame him. There are evenings they spend in the woods together that he wishes he could freeze and replay when the noise in his head gets too loud, and then there are nights punctuated by arguments and barbed words spat at each other when things get bad. Kieren doesn't know how to explain that it isn't enough, this strange game of hide and seek they have, and so he settles for clandestine blowjobs and kisses that feel sacred. 

Then Rick's gone, and Kieren doesn't know what to do. When he hears about the roadside bomb, he lets the white noise fill his head until he can't hear anything at all. It stays like that until the funeral, until Kieren gets home and takes the stack of paintings of Rick – Rick smiling, Rick looking at him like he shines – and drops a match on every last one. Watching the flames devour the canvases quietens something in him and replaces it with something new. He no longer feels lost. He feels powerful, and hurt, and he knows what he wants to do.

The cave is cold and the army knife is cold and Kieren doesn't mind.

* * *

 

Jem is hardened but he doesn't blame her – in the four years since he's been gone a lot has changed and he's not sure how he can slot himself back into her life without upsetting the balance. His parents are gentle but pretend not to acknowledge the fact that he was gone in the first place. He tries to draw again but his coordination is off, and what he sees in his head doesn't really translate to paper any more. He doesn't think about how much that hurts. In his darkest moments, he convinces himself that the PDS is just a manifestation of what's been in him all along, something else he has to push against and medicate to stop it bubbling to the surface.

Amy falls into his life like a petticoated whirlwind, and though dying hadn't killed the chronic heaviness in his bones, she helps soothe it. She doesn't see why he dutifully paints on the foundation and slips in the contacts, but she doesn't push him to stop. She says they're meant to be, and she holds him even tighter when he finally shows her how it happened – there's no resentment there, that one of them chose to die and the other didn't, and Kieren didn't realise he'd been expecting it until it doesn't come.

That night in the legion, when he sees the face he watched get burnt down to embers over and over, something in Kieren's head snaps. The fuzzing noise seems to get louder and quieten down at the same time, and the anger he'd felt on the hot-headed walk to the pub settles into a dull ache in his stomach. Rick smiles.

Finding Rick slumped against the garage door pushes the cold fury out into the word again, and Kieren doesn't know how to channel it until he's already outside the Macy's front door.

* * *

 

Simon is an enigma wrapped in ratty jumpers and a terrible mac, and Kieren is wary of him from the moment he sets foot in Roarton. Amy sings his praises, loudly and to anyone who'll listen, but Kieren is cynical – religion has never sat right with him, and the preaching is unsettling. It's only when Simon shows him the track marks on his forearms, blue and bitter, that it clicks. Here is someone else with the darkness in their head, Kieren thinks; here is someone else who will understand the pressing static.

When Gary fires Blue Oblivion straight into his nervous system, Kieren wants to tear him to shreds for taking away the control he's carefully forged. He feels the drug wrap around his brain and fog his thoughts and tries desperately to fight it; he's tried so hard to become someone gentle.

He comes to with Simon heavy across his chest, and braces himself for the news that he's hurt someone. Instead, Simon cups his face with shaking hands and says _you're fine you're fine you're fine_ and Kieren doesn't believe it. He doesn't believe it until he sees the blurred face of his dad slip back into focus, scared and relieved all at once.

Simon tells him he's incredible, how he's never seen someone fight it like that, and Kieren shuts him down. It's not the first time he's fought against something so all encompassing trying to wrench all control from him.

Somehow, Simon gets it. Somehow, that's enough for now.

 


End file.
